Chatsworth's Ace Antonio Hall Lives in Two Worlds

When he’s not on the set shooting a scene, Ace Antonio Hall lives almost every waking moment writing novels of the futuristic Sci-Fi thriller/horror genre. In addition to being a horror novelist he is also an actor in television series and movies and has had principal roles in a few independent films. 

“I have been enamored by the darker side of things since watching the Creature Features television program when I was eight years old.” says Hall. “I knew [from] the moment I saw The Creature from the Black Lagoon,  Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein, and Hitchcock's Psycho that I wanted to write science fiction.” Hall earned a BFA from Long Island University with a concentration in acting and screenwriting.  

Hall says, “The stories which have influenced me greatly are Parable of the Sower, Neuromancer, The Stand, Night of The Living Dead, and every episode from the Twilight Zone series. Talk about how important first impressions are: My first manuscript, Dead World Living, was influenced by the very first novel I read as a 10-year-old boy, Escape from Witch Mountain by Alexander Key. Dead World Living is about to be released as an e-book.

In terms of experience and artistic exposure, Hall has led an interesting and varied life. Inspired by his father, Chris Acemandese Hall, and his actor sister, Carol Lynn Brown, Hall was torn between choosing a career in music or film. He’s been a song producer and keyboardist. In the late 1980s, he danced with Madonna in a club in Manhattan, and almost knocked her hat off when he did a spin move.  When he moved to Los Angeles, he gave singing lessons to pop star Michael Jackson’s niece. 

After the death of his father in 2005, during an eight-hour walk from North Hollywood to his home in Chatsworth, Hall decided to quit his $80,000 a year job as a Director of Education of the Sylvan Learning Center and pursue writing and acting more passionately. Then in 2007, Ace became part-owner of the Hollywood Film and Actors Academy in Hollywood, and became acting coach and creative director.   

A husband and father, Hall typically wakes at 5 a.m., writes 1,500 words, works out, and then goes to the set for TV shoots. Hall was seen this past season as the date of Vanessa Williams’ character in an episode of  Desperate Housewives. Additionally he’s shot 12 episodes of a TV series waiting to get picked up; Checkmate is a family sitcom in which he plays the father of a young girl who has a boyfriend. 

Over the course of his career Hall has written both fiction and nonfiction books. In the past 12 years his association with entertainment personalities inspired his 2008 book of philosophical prose, The Yin and Yang of Balanistics. The next novel in his series about a 19-year-old necromancer Sylvia Slasher, Confessions of a Teenage Zombie Slasher, comes out this September. 

Hall is the vice president of the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society. He joined the group in 2008 and found its lectures and support invaluable aids to his writing.

Says Hall, laughingly, “I started out as a little cub and now I’m turning into a literary lion.”